On Monday, a federal judge in New York City ordered the immediate release of immigrant rights leader Ravi Ragbir from detention, calling his detention “unnecessarily cruel.” In a decision read aloud from the bench, District Judge Katherine Forrest said Ragbir had “the freedom to say goodbye,” and compared his treatment to that of “regimes we revile as unjust, regimes where those who have long lived in a country may be taken without notice from streets, home, and work. And sent away. We are not that country; and woe be the day that we become that country under a fiction that laws allow it.” Ragbir is the executive director of the New Sanctuary Coalition. He’s one of a handful of high-profile immigrant rights activists who have been targeted by the Trump administration. For more on his release and what’s next, we speak with Ravi Ragbir; his wife, immigrant rights advocate Amy Gottlieb; and Ravi’s lawyer, Alina Das, co-director of the Immigrant Rights Clinic at NYU School of Law.
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JUAN GONZÁLEZ: We begin today with some rare good news for immigrant rights advocates.
NEW SANCTUARY COALITION MEMBERS: Ravi! Ravi! Ravi! Ravi! Ravi! Ravi! Ravi!
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Those are members of the New Sanctuary Coalition, cheering an order to release their executive director, Ravi Ragbir, from detention.
Last month, Ragbir was one of several nationally recognized activists to be taken into custody by Immigration and Customs Enforcement. He was handcuffed and arrested during his routine check-in on January 11th, prompting a mass protest that ended with 18 people arrested, including two members of the New York City Council. Ravi was then quickly flown by ICE, in shackles, to the Krome Detention Center in Florida. As he faced imminent deportation to his native Trinidad, public outcry grew. Then ICE informed his lawyers that he’d be brought back to detention in the New York City area.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, on Monday, US District Judge Katherine Forrest said Ravi Ragbir’s…